The increasingly ubiquitous pink sticker, informing a property owner that it’s no longer OK to diss the city by letting his or her building fall into disrepair has appeared here at Broad and Cypress on the Beaux Arts Superior Laboratories, built in 1910 and owned by Assorted Music Partnership. The sticker informs owners of properties on otherwise stable blocks that they can not have boarded up windows or doors: real windows and doors must be installed.

Image, 1927: PhillyHistory.org

Amidst what we’re accustomed to reporting about a city incapable and uninterested in taking care of its architectural heritage, this is a sign of a city beginning to take itself seriously.

For more on this initiative, see Angela Taurino and Ariel Diliberto’s report HERE.

For more on what happens when a city doesn’t require property owners to maintain their buildings, see the rest of the Daily.

About the author

Nathaniel Popkin is co-founder of the Hidden City Daily and author of three books of non-fiction, including Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City (with Peter Woodall and Joseph E.B. Elliott) and two novels, Everything is Borrowed and Lion and Leopard. He is co-editor of Who Will Speak for America, an anthology forthcoming in June 2018, and the senior writer of the film documentary "Philadelphia: The Great Experiment."

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